Persian embroidery is one of the many forms of
the multi-faceted Persian arts. The motifs used in the
Persian embroidery are mostly floral, especial Persian figures, animals, and patterns related to
hunting.

The Persian embroidered women's trouserings have rich patterns.
They were very much in vogue up till the end of the 18th century.
With a survival of Victorian modesty, these are usually
known as "Gilets Persans". The designs are always of diagonal
parallel bands filled with close floral ornamentation and are very
effective.

Contents

History

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Sassanid
era

We know that the Persian embroidery existed from the ancient times
and at least from the time of the Sassanids. Numerous
designs are visible on the dresses of the personages on the
rock-sculptures and silverware of that period, and have been
classified by Professor Ernst Herzfeld. Also the patterns on the
coat of Chosroes II at Taq-e Bostan are in such high relief that
they may represent embroidery. Roundels, confronted animals and
other familiar motives of Sassanid art were doubtless employed. It
is probable that the famous Garden Carpet of Chosroes II was a
piece of embroidery.

Later

The Persian embroideries we possess of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries are almost exclusively divan-coverings or ceremonial cloth for
present-trays, while in the eighteenth century and later we have
the addition of rugs for the bathing-rooms, prayer-mats, and
women's embroidered trousers, known as 'naghshe'.

Peculiarities

The earlier embroideries of Iran are almost all of a type in
which the entire ground is covered by the design, while the reverse
is true, in the main, of the later pieces, in which the background
of one plain colour is made to play its part equally with the
varied silks of the needlework. The earlier pieces are almost all
closely allied in design to one or other of the many types of
carpets. They are worked chiefly in darning-stitch on cotton or
loosely-woven linen, while occasionally examples in cross- or
tent-stitch are met with. It is perhaps reasonable to assume that
the more important class of work, that of carpet-weaving, supplied
the original design and that the embroiderer adopted it from a type
familiar to her. Also it must be remembered that the carpet-weaving
was mainly done by men, embroidery by women, so that members of the
same family worked at both trades.